Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Change in Platform

Please note that I have changed the host of this blog to Wordpress.  The new link is:

http://growingoldwithoutchildren.wordpress.com/

New posts will no longer be posted here.  Please visit me at the above url and sign up to follow me.

Michael

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Really, I'm just not hungry.


The Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine recently (November 24, 2013) addressed the ethical implications of the imposition of forced feeding (tubes) when a prisoner goes on a hunger strike.  The conclusion was that if the inmate’s intention was solely to make a political statement protesting terms of detention, to illustrate a social point, “using the deterioration of his body as a means of making a public argument,” then no forced feeding would be ethically required. If the intention of the inmate was to commit suicide, that the prisoner had simply lost the will to live, then the imposition of forced feeding was appropriate, even required. The prison had an obligation to prevent the suicide of an inmate, whether by sudden hanging or by self imposed slow starvation.

Now fast forward to your hypothetical last visit to the hospital.  You have provided your advanced directive.  You have told all your caregivers, including your primary care physician, your wishes for care should you become incapacitated.  You are at peace with life and ready for death.  There is no point to continue in pain.  You have rationally explained your actions.  You have stopped eating to hasten the end.

Would the same ethical obligation apply to the hospital medical staff? By not inserting a feeding tube and allowing you to refuse nourishment, are they assisting in a suicide?   I would think not, since your wishes have been carefully laid out in your advanced directive, at a time when you were clearly rational.  But as the debate about assisted suicide continues, I wonder how the medical community in our area will respond.  As noted in earlier posts (“A Sensitive Subject”, February 25, 2013), assisted-suicide is legal in several jurisdictions, including Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and three American states (Oregon, Washington, and Montana).  Does that mean that the withholding by request of a feeding tube from an otherwise functioning body but with questionable viability in any other jurisdiction constitutes assistance?


Without the advocacy of family members, how can you be assured that your final wishes will be carried out?  This is a conversation that we should all, at the right time, have with our primary care physician and closest caregivers?  I am not advocating this as an end of life strategy, but simply suggesting that it is something we should think about, and more importantly, talk about.  No one else will do this for us.

 Michael

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Strategy: Develop habits that stave off negatives of olderness

The following link is to an NPR story about a Mediterranean style diet's effects on both physical and mental aging.  This relates back to our strategy of developing positive habits now (eating good stuff vs bad stuff) that will tend to lessen the risks or effects of "losing it" down the road.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/05/242994376/for-mind-body-study-finds-mediterranean-diet-boosts-both?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20131110&utm_source=mostemailed

However, when you listen to this, ask yourself, "What about MEN?"  The study consisted of all women.  Are men so hopelessly lost that we cannot walk away from our steak and potatoes?  Is there no hope that we can keep up with our smart-eating women, so we might as well continue to clog our arteries and die with a beer in our hands and a smile on our faces?

Maybe all these 90 year old smart gorgeous active women will have realized that life is better without those 90 year old decrepit smelly annoying men constantly in need of..........what?  Something?  They don't even know.  They just need.

As for me:  "Mademoiselle, s'il vous plait,  Je voudrais un salad nicoise." (See: "Strategy - use your brain, learn a language.")

Michael

Monday, September 30, 2013

Genworth 2013 Cost of Care Survey

Executive Summary:


POLST

One major concern about being childless is not having someone watching over your health care.  Things can happen that we may not want to happen when we encounter a health care system with rigid guidelines on acceptable and unacceptable treatment.  Advanced Directives are one way to maintain control.  A POLST form extends that control one more level.  See below for a description of POLST and the difference between POLST and Advanced Directives.


From POLST.org:

The National POLST Paradigm Program is an approach to end-of-life planning that emphasizes patients’ wishes about the care they receive. The POLST Paradigm – which stands for Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment – is both a holistic method of planning for end-of-life care and a specific set of medical orders that ensure patients’ wishes are honored. The POLST Paradigm is built upon conversations between patients, loved ones, and health care professionals, during which patients can determine the extent of care they wish to receive. As a result of these conversations, patients may elect to create a POLST form, which translates their wishes into actionable medical orders. The POLST form assures patients that health care professionals will provide only the care that patients themselves wish to receive, and decreases the frequency of medical errors.

Does a POLST form replace the Advance Directive?

The POLST form complements the Advance Directive and is not intended to replace it. An Advance Directive is necessary to appoint a legal health care representative and provide instructions forfuture life-sustaining treatments. The Advance Directive is recommended for all adults, regardless of their health status.
A POLST form should accompany an Advance Directive when appropriate.  For more information go to: www.caringinfo.org.

What are the primary differences between an Advance Directive and a POLST form?

ADVANCE DIRECTIVE
  • For anyone 18 and older
  • Provides instructions for future treatment
  • Appoints a Health Care Representative
  • Does not guide Emergency Medical Personnel
  • Guides inpatient treatment decisions when made available
POLST
  • For persons with serious illness — at any age
  • Provides medical orders for current treatment
  • Guides actions by Emergency Medical Personnel when made available
  • Guides inpatient treatment decisions when made available

Friday, September 27, 2013

Our Stuff

(This is an update to this previous post in order to test e-mail notifications)

Why do we have the stuff we have?  What does our stuff say about us?  Does our stuff have any value, any character beyond its stuffy-ness, or does its existence have value only because of our own existence?  Would Jack Handey or George Carlin have to say about this stuff?

We have a lot of stuff.  Some day that stuff will have to move on.  Our relationship with it will be severed, and some new relationships will be established.  For some stuff it will be a relationship with friends and relatives.  Charities may become involved.  Some may find its way onto a barge or bale moving to a needy country.  For some perhaps the curb, and the landfill for others.

Our exterior stuff is a reflection of our interior character.  We dress the way we do because of the image we want to project.  Our furniture also reflects this image.  The couch is about comfort, yes, but also about style.  It fits with the room that is painted in the color that frames the paintings that show how we appreciate abstract constructs that support the image that we are smart and sophisticated.  Cars, houses, boats, they all say something about who we think are, who we want to be and what we believe is important.

Our stuff also gives us pleasure and comfort.  Our things engender feelings of pride and satisfaction. They trigger introspection and memories.  They help us do things we enjoy.  They feel, smell and taste good.  These are all attributes of a meaningful existence that we do not want to lose of as we age. The necessity of cutting back on our things is complicated.

We are beginning to assess the disposition of our stuff.  Our stuff means something to us.  We do not want to leave it to the guy with the pickup truck who comes to clean out the garbage in the house the day after we die so our executor can sell the house.  Being childless, we do not have the option of letting them settle any stuff-related issues when we are gone.  We want to identify proper homes for our stuff now, while we can.

Disposition of these items will require thought.  As we age and our horizons move closer, it is important to not strip our lives of all their meaning.  Here is one advantage we childless have - if we are careful, we can control our environment, rather than have it imposed by the will of others who will impose what stuff we can afford to carry with us and what must be left behind.  We are starting to winnow down our stuff now, in an organized manner while in full control of our faculties.  For example, I can anticipate now that the enlarged high school graduation picture of herself will stay with me to the end, but the effort of retaining the framed graph of Napoleon's March to Moscow by Charles Joseph Minard will at some point become too much to bear.  I have reconciled myself to parting with it at some point.  The framed CPA certificate will be worth nothing to anyone and will soon make nice kindling for the fireplace.

Our stuff is divided into distinct groups.  Utility stuff is the stuff of everyday life.  Cars.  Window air conditioners.  The band saw and other tools.  Kitchen stuff.  Yard stuff.  Most of this stuff will have residual monetary value to others, and can be adjusted as our lifestyle changes.  We can sell one car when we no longer need two.  The lawn mower and hedge trimmers go when we hire the landscape guy to take care of the yard.  The tools and furniture go when we move into the assisted living facility.   The All-Clad pots go when we start eating in the dining room of the retirement home.  The iron skillets and espresso maker, though, I am taking with me.

Utility Stuff Strategy:  Be realistic about when you no longer need it, and get rid of it.

Much of the artful stuff will also likely find a home easily.  Paintings and posters remain interesting. Rare restaurant plates, hand crafted glassware, figurines (why do we collect figurines?), hurricane lamps.  We are not so unique that someone else will not have the same taste in decorative stuff (the disposition of the collection of animal-shaped creamers may be a little more problematic).  We find all these things pleasant.  Looking at them brings pleasure and fond memories.  Some more than others, some more for her than for him.  Some we keep because they were gifts and to dispose would be to offend.

And books.  Oh, BOOKS!  We have hundreds of them.  Fiction, biography, history, instructional, referential and reverential.  Humor.  Plants.  How to build a deck.  How to install Windows 2.0.  Some books we keep because we want to read them again.  Some because they contain gems of wisdom to which we wish to have future access.  And some we keep just because they were great, and it is comforting to give them a glance and remember the stories.  When space no longer permits retention, call your local library.  They are always looking for used books to sell at the annual Book Fair.  They may even add one or two rare ones to their collections.

Artful Stuff Strategy:  Keep it while it gives pleasure, but internalize the concept 
of gradually letting go. Don't let it become junk.  

Historical stuff will be a little more tricky.  Our histories are not our own.  Our lives are linked with those of many others, and the documents of our lives may be of some interest to those others.  While we have no children, we do have other family, friends, godchildren, organizational associations, geographical links, etc.  So now is the time to start thinking about who might be interested in pieces of our historical stuff.

Historical stuff consists of:
  • Pictures of us, family, friends, places.  
  • Memorabilia of events.  (programs, song lyrics, tchotchkes) 
  • Memorabilia of activities.  (charts, maps, log books, journals)
  • Personal historical documents. (expired passports, birth certificates, awards) 
  • Family historical documents.  (parental records such as death certificates, photos, geneologies)
  • Business and financial documents. (bank statements, tax returns)
  • Personal documents.  (birth certificates, etc.)
  • Things of value (Redwood Library stock certificate, coin collections). 
  • Crap. (pretty much all of the above)
Our pictures are a mess.  We have 40 years worth of prints, slides and digital media.  No super-8 films, thank god.  The only people other than ourselves that would have the slightest interest in them is our biographers.  If they would just identify themselves and pay me royalties now, I would be happy to organize them by subject and date, annotate each one, and carefully document the historical relevance of each.  Of those that include other friends we might send them to those friends so THEY can deal with them.  But until then, we will keep them in a box knowing that they will be burned when we are gone.  The embarrassing ones will be in the safe deposit box along with instructions for our executor, only to be used if any of our friends run for public office.

Memorabilia and personal documents:  same as pictures.  No one will want them.  Strategy:  look at them once in a while, keep them as long as they give you pleasure and you have room, but at some point pitch them.  Think of it this way:  That stuff represents things we did in the past.  We are in the NOW.  We are creating NEW memories, and that is more important than dusty old past memories.

We have a lot of family historical documents.  They include: a family geneology that goes back to the 1500's; old photos from when our parents were married, our siblings were young and our extensive family (Mennonite farmers from Kansas) was close-knit.  Some of this might have value to a historical society somewhere, or some younger family members from another branch (my branch ends with me). We might box them up and send them to the church back home and let the cousins et al pick through them.  We will keep it as long as we find it interesting and entertaining.  But, again, we do not want all that history cluttering up what future we have left.  "Scrape 'em off, Claire!" (-Bill Murray, Scroodged)

Historical Stuff Strategy:  Find homes for it early and let it go.

Business and financial documents:  keep a list of recommended retention dates and every January go through them and shred (do not just pitch, but shred) the old ones.  Make this one of the good habits you carry with you.  Start now.  Google Records Retention to find many links with helpful information.  It is not complicated.  Here are two such links:

http://www.shred-corp.com/guidlines.pdf

http://www.pncpa.com/Pdfs/RecordsRetentionSchIndividuals.pdf

Business and Financial Documents Strategy:  Shred, don't dump.

Personal documents:  Stash them in a safe deposit box for security.  Your executor and whoever writes your obituary may need them.  Let them worry about ultimate disposition.

Personal Documents Strategy:  Keep 'em.

Things of value:  There are a couple of ways to handle this stuff, but both require you to figure out who you want to eventually have them.  You can put them in a box, seal the box, and put a mailing label on it for the intended recipient.  Or you can identify them in your will.  I like the box route, because at some point this stuff will just get in the way.  Get ready to distribute the treasure, and then do it while you can still control the process.  Who knows, if the recipient is pleasantly surprised by your generosity, maybe they will visit and change your diaper each week.

Things of Value Strategy:  Controlled distribution.

As for the rest of the crap:

Crap Strategy:  You Know!

Michael





Sunday, September 1, 2013

Summary of Strategies Thus Far

I think it is time to do a short summary of the trategies that we have discussed so far.  Most of the 50-plus posts to this blog can be separated into the following strategies for elding without the support of a network of family and friends:
  1. Maintain your physical health
  2. Maintain your mental health
  3. Maintain your security
  4. Anticipate issues
  5. Develop habits that support the above strategies 
  6. Develop plans well in advance of need
    1. Financial
    2. Operational
    3. End Game
A few other posts fall into the categories of "Weak Attempts at Snarky Humor to Try to Hold Your Attention," and "Trivia and Miscelanea." Do with them as you wish.

Below is a chart sorting the individual posts.  If you are interested in one strategic category, you can find on this chart all the posts that pertain to that subject.  Many of the posts touched on more than one category, and of course the snarky humor is pervasive.

( I hope this chart is readable on the final post.  If not, I will try to find some way to reformat.  And you can send me a reply or email and I will sent you the Excel file from which it was copied)

Growing Old Alone
Navigating Retirement and Aging Without the Support of Family
Summary by Strategic Category
Post Post # Date Maintain Physical Health Maintain Mental Health Maintain Security Anticipate Issues Develop Habits Develop Plans - Financial Develop Plans - Operational Develop Plans - End Game Snarky Humor Trivia and Miscelanea
Growing Old - The Concept 1 1/30/12 N/A
Long Term Care 2 2/4/12 X
Done Got Old 3 2/7/12 X
A short description of Long Term Care Insurance 4 2/9/12 X
If you don't have a plan for where you are going… 5 2/16/12 X X
A few short thoughts 6 2/23/12 X X
Continuing Care Retirement Communities 7 3/3/12 X X
Getting Scammed 8 3/4/12 X X
Update on LTC Insurance 9 3/8/12 X
The Cruise Ship as Retirement Home 10 3/10/12 X
Memory and Habits 11 3/28/12 X X
"I don't want to get old" 12 3/29/12 X
Independent Living 13 4/4/12 X
Retirement Home Hint 14 4/8/12 X
A philosophical digression about the bearing of children 15 4/9/12 X
Long Term Care Cost Update 16 5/1/12 X
A few words on fitness for the kid-less 17 5/2/12 X X
Long Term Care Insruance - is it worth buying? 18 5/14/12 X
Sorry… 19 6/3/12 N/A
Habits, personality and elder abuse 20 6/11/12 X X
Not more on Habits? 21 6/27/12 X X
Attitudes (Gratitude in Particular) 22 7/23/12 X
Yummy! 23 7/23/12 X
Two Things You Need to Know 24 7/26/12 X
Rainy Day Money 25 8/28/12 X
Sex in the nursing home 26 8/28/12 X
Morningstar report 27 8/30/12 X
Morningstar - 40 must know statistics 28 8/30/12 X
Morningstar:  do you have a viable plan for long term care 29 8/30/12 X
A Pasticcio 30 10/3/12 X
A Matter of Context 31 10/9/12 X
The Keys, Please 32 10/15/12 X
Guess we're not the only ones thinking about this 33 10/18/12 X X
Reverse mortgages 34 10/18/12 X
This has nothing to do with aging along, but 35 10/19/12 X X
Care by consensus 36 10/22/12 X
Exercise might beat puzzles for protecting the aging brain 37 10/24/12 X
A reflection on meditation 38 12/16/12 X
Downsizing 39 12/18/12 X X
Helpful publications 40 12/27/12 X
More on meditation from TED talks 41 1/16/13 X
It is really about self reliance 42 1/29/13 X
A sensitive subject 43 2/25/13 X
Involvement keeps the mind sharp 44 2/25/13 X
Confusion.  Happens when you eld. 45 2/27/13 N/A
The Keys Please II 46 3/13/13 X
Some Statistics 47 3/15/13 X
An Example of why the habit of skepticism is so important 48 3/15/13 X X
Co-Housing - Shy didn't I think of that? 49 3/25/13 X
Special Needs Emergency Registry 50 4/8/13 X
Update/Reminder on Long Term Care Insurance 51 5/8/13 X
Some Odd Thoughts on Medicaid and Procreation. 52 5/8/13 X
Look Before You Leap - Or Move. 53 5/13/13 X
Invest in Social Connections 54 5/23/13 X
End-Of-Life Planning 55 5/30/13 X
A Technique for Aging Women to Remain Vital 56 6/3/13 X
Time Bandits 57 7/21/13 X
We Are Not Alone 58 9/1/13 X